The World Wide Web has made it easier for consumers and merchants to find each other. Consumers utilize search engines and keyword searches to identify merchants of desired goods and services. Web sites and other on-line research tools allow consumers to sift through the results to find merchants of particular interest. Merchants may use sponsored searches or pay for placement advertising in order to get their products and services identified for targeted consumers.
Notwithstanding the tremendous amount of information that may be obtained on the internet, many consumers still prefer to speak to a live person at the merchant's place of business in order to confirm details or find out additional information, and to complete a sale. While traditional public switched telephone networks (PSTN) are still a primary mode of communications, the use of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is gaining popularity.
VoIP is a technology that allows users to make telephone calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular phone line over the PSTN. Some services using VoIP may only allow users to call other people using VoIP. However, many services also allow users to call anyone who has a telephone number, including local, long distance, mobile, and international numbers. While some services only work over a computer or a special VoIP phone, other services allow use of a traditional telephone through an adaptor.
To encourage the use of VoIP, service providers have sought ways to make VoIP more convenient and efficient to use. For example, some VoIP providers offer technology that identifies potential telephone numbers in content on the Internet by highlighting telephone numbers found in a web page and associating a hyperlink which allows a user to initiate a telephone call to the highlighted number.
On-line advertising has expanded to take advantage of VoIP. For example, advertisers can provide a hyperlink for a merchant telephone number, and clicking on the link will initiate a call to the merchant in the so-called click-to-call (C2C) model. Further, merchants may subscribe to a service using a pay-per-click (PPC) model, where the merchant is charged each time a consumer clicks on an advertising link for that merchant. Also, since consumers may want to avoid the charges associated with making a phone call, merchants can purchase a toll-free telephone number and therefore pay for incoming calls by consumers.
This leads to a potential problem, however, as telephone spammers may abuse the system by making multiple calls to the merchant, either individually or as part of a computerized dialing scheme, as part of a telemarketing campaign, or worse, an intentional disruption directed at a specific merchant by a competitor.